Archive for the ‘Product Development’ Category
Thursday, February 16th, 2012
“The old computing was about what computers could do…the new computing is about what people can do“, Ben Shneiderman’s saying is as much relevant today as it ever was. The impact of social business and social technologies on our professional and personal lives is so profound that businesses now are re-thinking their strategies in the light of ‘social’ context. The social web offers a lot of opportunities by harnessing the tremendous potential offered by multiple disciplines ranging from marketing, consumer behaviour, information technology, design, data analytics, gamification and customer experience and cognitive psychology, to name a few. The nice thing with the social strategy is that virtually anybody or any company can get on the board, however it does not guarantee success to all players in the game. The definition of ‘success’ in this context is debatable and fairly open, so I shall consider effectiveness over success. In this post, I wish to highlight the key pitfalls you must avoid, which would help you to get it right with your social strategy.
1. Giving only lip service to ‘people power’
All along, we have been hearing companies and people claiming “we are in the people business“, or “I am a people person“. In the context of Social web, these phrases are now acquiring new meaning and perhaps ‘the correct’ meaning. Now more than ever, opportunities are opening up, which will enable you to really do what you mean and put people in the rightful place they belong to and given the attention they deserve. Whether its the customers who bought your products, users who are facing problems using them or those people, who you think, know you by your name or brand are becoming your potential target audience. The nets are widening to reach out to the larger audience and in the broadest of contexts. The social channels are helping organisations reach out, listen to customers’ heartbeats and not just their voices, and providing support to the needy in real time. I have seen instances on Twitter when British Gas attempted to respond, advise and resolve the issues of their customers, on Twitter.
2. Getting aboard all the social trains
Resist the temptation to get on to every social and professional network available. As the old saying goes, “tell me your company and I shall tell you who you are”, the same holds true with the social channels and networks. Carefully consider who your target users are and identify those networks where your presence adds value to your brand, offerings and customers. For instance, just because everybody is creating a Facebook page, you don’t have to create one, when your product is targeted to the older generation users or high-security defence-component manufacturers. Look out for the maximum buzz and check if it suits you to have your presence there. Also, sometimes it is not the quantity that matters, but the quality. For example, Facebook and Twitter might have millions of users, but just focusing on them may not work well, if you are a large brand with global presence and rich legacy. To better leverage your interests and aspirations, a different network, say Pinterest could be a better bet, considering that it is the fastest-growing social network specially for the big brands out there.
Answering the following questions will help you choose the networks, wisely!
- Who are my target audience?
- What is my real offering and how does it help the users?
- Where (which online networks) can I find my target audience, the most?
- What is the nature of my business offering – social/professional?
- Which networks should I consider for my presence?
3. Thinking “Social is the flavour of the season”
From businesses, news corporations, traditional media houses, celebrities and common people, everybody is getting active on the social networks. Don’t just focus on the social aspects at the cost of losing the advantage with traditional media. You need to ensure that there is harmony and congruence in your offline and online presence. Yes, it is true that to host a campaign on Facebook or run a series of hashtag tweets on Twitter it might be a lot cheaper or perhaps costs nothing. Add to that it could be the easiest thing to create, track and manage campaigns on these online networks. However, without careful consideration and calculation of cost-benefit analysis, don’t ditch the traditional marketing channels and rely solely on the social channels. With all the positive vibes going around with the social media, there is also another side that needs to be looked at. These social media can make or mar the reputation of your brand in no time with as much ease and speed you had in creating the campaign. For instance, McDonalds ran a campaign on Twitter with the hashtags #McDStories and #MeetTheFarmers, but the campaign backfired thanks to the comments by some ‘enthusiastic’ users and their sarcastic tweets on McDonalds and their products.
4. Excessive focus on your products and services
Gone are those days when only your customers and users were talking about the products and services that they bought and used. You were happy interacting with the people you know – whether its your preferred partners, loyal customers or willing prospects. Now the context is changing rapidly and the landscape has been extending further to prospective customers, friends of users. The World is indeed becoming one global village with inter-connected networks and individuals, intersecting each other in a criss-cross fashion. The interactions that you encourage among the various stakeholders, customers, users and followers need to be focused on the brand and not necessarily the products or services alone. Newer measures and metrics such as awareness, engagement, influence, reach, buzz and total customer value are complementing the good old measures like sales per product line, customer satisfaction index.
5. Quitting before you start seeing the benefits
Let us accept it, just because you have hopped on to the social strategy earlier does not make you a leader in your industry. Getting social has become a sanity factor and more of a tick on your checklist, than a well-thought strategic directive. Often it takes more effort, time and perhaps other resources such as people, money too, to take off to a proper shape. Don’t give up just yet. Here are a few tips that will help you get better at the game of social media.
- Set realistic goals which need to be tracked on a continual basis
- Be persistent with your efforts
- Learn from the leaders and follow the paths which worked right for them
- Monitor the impact of social operations on your core business
- Track and analyse the key measures and metrics to assess how you are performing
Hope you find the above tips helpful with your social initiatives. Don’t hesitate to mix and match different things that could work wonders for you. Do share your feedback. We shall discuss more interesting stuff in the upcoming posts. Till then, ciao!
Tags: Ben Shneiderman, brand, British Gas, business, campaign, computing, customers, Facebook, Innovative, mantravadi, McDonalds, Pardha, Pardha Saradhi Mantravadi, people, Pinterest, social, social networks, social web, solutions, strategy, success, support, technologies, texavi, Texavi Innovative Solutions, twitter, Unified Experience, users
Posted in Business Analysis, Business Case, Information Technology, Product Development, Social business, Social Technologies | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, December 20th, 2011
Google recently announced the official withdrawal (or some would say the unfortunate death) of a few products which could not deliver their promise. These include but are not limited to Google Wave and Google Buzz, which failed to create the waves and the buzz in the market. Remember, these came from the stable of none other than Google, which is a leading product vendor renowned for innovation, simplicity and user experience. Why then, do you think they could not measure up and survive? I think one of the main reasons is that they failed the litmus test. And the real litmus test for your products is when they reach the real users who use them to address their needs. Popularly called as usability testing, the user testing of your product reveals a lot of insights into the success or failure of the features you have created newly or changed in your products. In this post, I wish to touch upon a few key aspects of Usability testing that you must know, but that is difficult to know!
Why usability testing
Usability tests help the product owners and developers to understand the performance of the product from the user’s needs, goals and tasks. It helps validate and verify the structure, layout, navigation,interaction and overall experience. Also, they help in identifying the task related details:
- Tasks to achieve their goals
- Time taken to perform the tasks
- Challenges in completing the tasks
- Breakdown areas/points in the performance tasks
- Confusing or ambiguous areas on the interface of product
User testing methods – Similarities & differences
I often hear people referring the terms usability testing, user acceptance testing (aka UAT) and accessibility testing in the same vein. While all of these may be related to product, and most often involve users and/or customers, they are different in their objectives, scope, and target audience as well. In this post, I wish to dwell upon the user testing which is also known as usability testing, and bring to fore its importance and the key differences between user testing, user acceptance testing and also market testing. Usability testing is often confused and compared with UAT( User Acceptance Testing). Sometimes people do compare with several marketing related activities. I give below a table comparing and contrasting among these various methodologies. I am sure this will be a handy reference for you, when in doubt.
Engage and test with users early
Defects and mistakes are like cubs, the younger you catch them, the better and quicker, you are at taming them. The later they are identified and closed in the product life cycle, they will turn into wild tigers and pounce upon the functionality, resulting in the failure of the products. Same with usability testing as well. UT can be done at various phases, across the development cycle of the product. Most product companies do realize the importance of involving users in the product development, but often this realization dawns upon them much later than required. There is not much use in testing the product with users, after it is all set to be delivered in a few days. You really cannot do much to rectify the defects identified, as the time to fix is less and the pressure to deliver is more.
So, a smarter step is to start testing the product earlier in the cycle for the user experience. This would help immensely with ample time to fix the defects and ensuring that they don’t grow too big to solve, much like taming the younger cubs. There is a second advantage to testing early, and that is to enable users to have a go at the product early on and this gives them a feeling of getting engaged with the product development. This in turn makes them feel that they do have a stake in the product and that they are being cared for and listened to. Another big advantage with the early testing is to do with the development team’s readiness to accept the changes and make them quickly. This is because they did not put in a great effort to churn out the artefact and so, they are far more willing to accept changes and rework, as compared to the later stages.
Secret of success – test more!
Testing early does help in identifying and resolving the defects to settle down, but it does not mean that there will be absolutely no defects coming later into the product. Well, the fact remains that the numbers might be minimized thanks due to the early testing, but still defects and erratic decisions do seep in due to various other factors. The only way to ensure that these are identified and resolved asap is by testing more of the product with the users. Most people have this question hovering in their mind as to how much of the product really needs to be tested with users. Well, the more the merrier. The more areas, functionality, modules and dimensions you test in your product, the better for you and your product.
Note that what you are going to test for, differ from time to time, and the level of completeness of the artefact. For instance during the early stages when you test the wireframes with your users, you might be looking for an assessment of the broad level concepts. As you move on into the product life cycle and test a complete, fully functional module of the product, you might be looking up to users for validating the interaction, information architecture etc. I give below the the areas you can focus on while testing the product at various stages in the life cycle.
Hope this post helped you in getting the facts right about usability testing. Don’t hesitate to write back your comments/queries. Until next post, ciao!
Tags: applications, buzz, experience, functionality, Google, Information, Innovative, interaction, mantravadi, marketing, navigation, Pardha, Performance, presentation, products, prototyping, Saradhi, software, solutions, technologies, test, testing, texavi, usability, user, ux, Wave, wireframes
Posted in Information Technology, Product Development, Usability Testing, User Experience, User Testing, User-centered Design | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, November 30th, 2011
There is one news item that I have been following very keenly in the evening newspaper , going back home from work, daily. It caught my attention a week ago and ever since, it has been on my radar. The news is not related to the bad state of economy, nor connected with sports , movies or music. It is the ‘Get London Reading’ news story published on the front page of London Evening Standard newspaper. This caught my attention because of the very title of the campaign and the positive vibes being generated and the potential impact and change it would create. The very title of this initiative is a great example of a behavior definition, nevertheless if it is a tad bit broad and ambitious, if not ambiguous.
Behavior change is possible
In my last post, we looked at what behaviors are and the main types of behaviors. Some people actually asked me the difference between a behavior, goal and task. When I have seen the ‘Get London Reading’ campaign, it instantly occurred to me as an example to help clarify this. A quick look at the campaign page hosted online will give you an indication why I refer to this as an exemplary behavior change programme. Well, in this post , let us take the next step and understand the Behavior Model touching upon the relationship between motivation, ability and triggers. I wish to draw some insights from Fogg Behavior Model (aka FBM) proposed by Prof. B.J.Fogg, using my examples.
The Poppy Appeal – Persuasion success story
A couple weeks ago, people in the UK observed Remembrance Sunday paying tributes to the armed forces personnel who sacrificed their lives in the line of service. People from all walks of life came forward to commemorate the bravery of soldiers in various ways. There were donations collected in different forms , the most visible of them being the Web site making the ‘poppy appeal’ and of course, the sale of poppies on the roads. You would have seen many people in London and other cities wearing and flaunting these poppies proudly, to show their support to the Royal British Legion. The poppy appeal program is a massive hit, garnering generous amounts of funds, besides all the attention. I wish to take the poppy appeal case as a success s story to elaborate my case about persuasion and behavior change.
Will do -> Want to do + can do
Let us consider a case when somebody comes and asks you to donate funds for the cause of soldiers. How many people will donate the money? Notice that some people do want to donate, because it is serving the noble cause of helping the defence services personnel, albeit in a small way. But not always do you find that all these motivated people can actually give. So, it is not enough to want to give funds, but most importantly, people should also have the ability to donate amounts. Great, so you found some people who want to and also who can donate. Is the job done? Not exactly. They need to be asked, reminded and provided with ways to donate . These are all the various triggers used to facilitate these motivated and able people to take the step and donate the amounts. Then and only then, would the motivated and able people come forward to donate.
Fogg Behavior Model (FBM)
So, from the above example, let us try and generalize this using the Behavior Model proposed by Prof. B.J.Fogg, Director of Persuasive Technologies Lab, Stanford University. You would have understood that people will do a task, not only when they are motivated but also when they have the ability. In other words, the first step in the process of behavior change is to identify those people who have high motivation. The next step is to simplify the task or process, or to increase their ability to do the task.
However, it does not always happen that these people actually do the tasks, until they are triggered with the right call to action. These triggers have to be placed on the journeys or paths of these people, at the right time, in the right place and with the right visibility. That’s the secret behind many successful products and services, which have been able to bring about a behavior change in their users.
Change is in the air – Lean & agile
You would have seen that this persuasion and behavior modeling is all about change, but change of a different kind. Organizations and products have been trying to induce the behavior change in the people. The beauty of this model is that it perfectly aligns with the spirit of other successful contemporary models for change management . These include but not limited to Agile product development and lean startup. All these models and schools of thought have an almost similar ideology. Agile product development is about identifying and responding and managing changes with the right people, tools and techniques. Lean startup embraces the philosophy of doing something in a small way leading up to a gradual and sustainable growth model. The behavior model encompassing behavior modeling, behavior change and persuasive design combines the best practices from psychology, change management, design and product engineering areas.
Mantras for changing behaviors
FBM is a powerful model which is applicable across different industries, product lines and market segments. It is very apt in the scenarios where you wish to make a long term behavior change, with an aim to make a positive habit among your customers and users. Here are some tips and guidelines, given by Prof. Fogg, based on the points discussed in this post.
- Behavior depends on how motivated users are, their ability and response to the right triggers for action
- People’s behaviors can be changed by motivating them, making it simple and/or inciting them to act
- Place triggers on the paths of motivated people who are able to do the behaviors
- Habits can be formed in people through behavior change
- Focus on increasing ability by making tasks easier for users
- Help people do what they already want to do
Hope you enjoyed reading this post and it is as helpful to you as the previous ones. Until next post, ciao!
Tags: agile, appeal, behavior, British, campaign, change, design, development, Get, Innovative, lean, Legion, London, mantra, mantravadi, model, Pardha, persuasion, poppy, product, Prof. B.J.Fogg, Reading, Royal, Saradhi, solutions, Stanford, startup, texavi, University
Posted in Agile Development, Behavior Modeling & Design, Business Analysis, Innovation, Product Development, User Analysis, User Experience, User-centered Design | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011
In 2006, Apple and Nike joined hands to develop Nike+iPod, that changed not only the way people listen to music on the move, but also the way they manage their fitness and in effect, their health and lifestyle. Just about the same time, Nintendo launched Wii, that changed the way people play games from being passive to an active, out-of-your-couch experience . A decade ago, Google changed the way people navigated by shifting their focus from browsing to searching and now Facebook has changed the way people stay connected. All these products, beyond doubt, set out to change the behaviors of people who are motivated (I am not quite there yet:-) and are capable, if they are provided with the right resources.
You can change people’s behaviors
All the companies and products I mentioned above, proved that it is possible to use behavior modeling and design to effectively persuade people to do something positive. In this post and a few upcoming posts, I will touch upon how these companies and others have been successful in using the power of persuasion and behavior design. They have been effective not just in creating great products and services, but also in persuading and changing the behaviors of millions of customers and users, worldwide. Let us analyze and understand how they could do it and what really is the secret behind their success. In doing this, I draw my insights from Prof. B.J.Fogg’s Behavior Model (a.k.a FBM) to explain the relationship among behavior, motivation, ability and triggers. But first, let us understand persuasion and behaviors, in detail, in this post.
Persuasion as an art and science
Persuasion has been an art we have all been familiar with and it definitely is not new to us, human beings . Right from the time we are born and as we grow up into being professionals, we have been using different persuasive techniques to deal with family, friends, colleagues and customers. Marketers and advertisers, through the ages, have been successful in persuading us to look at, buy and use products and services. Its only recently that product companies have been looking at using persuasion and changing customers’ behaviors through structured and proven methodologies. More recently product companies like Fit Bit and DailyFeats-Jawbone launched wearable devices that help track your movements and proactively suggest ways to improve your fitness and health. Both these devices have been designed to persuade people to change their behavior, from a passive to a more active lifestyle. The key here is they have been successful in implementing the Persuasion and design and develop products to help change behaviors in a pragmatic manner.
What is a behavior
We keep hearing about goals, needs, tasks and activities, being used in our professional and personal spheres. Now you might be wondering how behaviors are different from these. Behaviors are perhaps more fundamentally ‘human’ and ingrained in us as human beings, than say, tasks or activities. No wonder then that behaviors could be separated from the other superficial aspects, such as activities and tasks . This is how I look at behaviors and I am not taking this from any specific source or resource. The personality of an individual can be dependent on both her attitude and behaviors. There are numerous theories suggesting ways to bring about attitude change. But as Prof. B.J.Fogg suggests, behaviors are better separated from attitudes for a clear definition and a focused approach to behavior change. So, I will follow the same approach and focus merely on defining target behaviors and bringing about the desired changes in behaviors of people.
Creating habits, not just products
Behaviors can come in different shapes and sizes. You might want to classify behaviors into different types based on the longevity or duration of their occurrence.
- Get people engaged in a one-time behavior Eg., Replace all bulbs in house with eco-friendly energy-saving ones
- Do it over some duration or for a defined period. Eg., Take bus/train to go to office, 3 days in a week
- Do it continuously over a long term, almost as a habit. Eg., Use hand-sanitizers to keep hands safe from viruses
It is in the last category, lies the interest of most organizations and products. Which company wouldn’t like to have customers using their product on a continual basis? Or better still getting habituated to using the product to the extent of forming an addiction. Recent examples for this have been Google, Facebook and Twitter…all of them did implement this long term behavior change in a smart way by creating habits in people, successfully. Google created searching as a habit by replacing it with the browsing navigation. Facebook created the habit of checking out what your friends are up to and sharing with your friends your recent escapades. Twitter provided a way for people to express and update their activities in a short sentence. If you want to be successful in your business, then start looking beyond your product’s features and users’ needs. It is time, you looked at making positive behavioral changes to your users in different contexts.
Behaviors and their flavors
Behaviors can also be looked at from the perspective of what you like to do to them. Some times, you may want to induce new behaviors, while in other instances, you want to change the existing behaviors – increase, decrease, or altogether stop them.
- New behaviors can be imparted to people. Eg., flossing teeth is new, compared to brushing
- Increase existing behaviors. Eg., Brush teeth twice a day, instead of once
- Decrease existing behaviors. Eg. Take less quantity of fatty food during dinner
- Stop existing behaviors. Eg., Stop smoking (hmm…this is tricky:-)
Now that we have covered the basics of behaviors, we are now geared to get into the details. In the next posts, I shall explain, taking help from Prof.B.J.Fogg’s Behavior Model, how you can be more persuasive in designing and developing your products. Until then, ciao!
Tags: advertisements, Apple, B.J.Fogg, behavior, change, DailyFeats, design, experience, Facebook, FBM, FitBit, fitness, Google, habits, health, Innovative, iPod, JawBone, mantravadi, model, Nike, NikePlus, Pardha, people, persuasion, products, Saradhi, services, solutions, texavi, twitter, user
Posted in Behavior Modeling & Design, Information Technology, Interaction Design, Product Development, User Experience, User-centered Design | 2 Comments »
Saturday, November 12th, 2011
Behavior change it is, if you are wondering what’s hot in the consumer space. I see this as a game changer , with organizations now looking beyond satisfying the explicit needs of users. Simply put, as a product or a services company, you have the power to change the behavior of your users. Apple, Google and Facebook are great examples of how well they understood the behavior modeling and persuasive design and successfully applied it in their products. Numerous products such as FitBit and DailyFeats-Jawbone UP use similar concepts to make people fit and healthy, bringing about a change in their long term habits, resulting in better health and lifestyles. We will talk about these products in the coming posts, in detail, but in this post I focus on the ‘persuasion and behavior design’ boot camp that I attended recently.
Persuasion and Behavior Design Boot Camp by Prof. B.J.Fogg
Last week I participated in the 2-day Persuasion Boot Camp held at San Francisco, USA. The workshop was conducted by Prof. B.J.Fogg, Director of Persuasive Technologies Lab, Stanford University. It was a great experience, learning directly from Prof.Fogg, who is an eminent thought-leader on this subject. In this post, I will briefly touch upon the next 2 paragraphs with my views and then give a few snippets and key takeaways from the workshop. I wish to share with you the learning from this workshop and also my experience applying it. Watch this space for interesting stuff to come in the future posts. For complete set of photos from this workshop, please visit www.facebook.com/texavi
Essence of Boot Camp in few words
I give below a few points briefly on how the workshop was conducted, why I think its different from others and the important takeaways from the boot camp. To start with, the following one-liners summarize the learning.
- Its all about users’ behaviors, not just product’s features
- Solutions, not just problems
- Focus on creating solutions quickly
- Ideate, initiate & Iterate
- This model aligns with the agile development and lean startup
Myths and misconceptions, shattered
The workshop helped address a few myths that we have about product design, development, human psychology and behavior design. I mention below a few misconceptions prevalent in the industry that we should be wary of .
- Blind trust in excessive academic research
- Focus on features is important for products
- Attempts to motivating people on a continuous basis without simplifying the tasks
- Focusing on attitudes, instead of behaviors.
- Everything big is good – big ideas and big initiatives are always successful
- Its difficult to make people adopt to new behaviors
Great content and context
The workshop was refreshingly different not only in the content but also in the context and delivery. Open-house discussions and interactive brain-storming replaced the more traditional ways of presentations. I can say that the highlight of the boot camp was that there was little or almost no usage of computers and Powerpoint presentations. Going by its apt title, the boot camp did its job aiming to make the participants experts in the specific areas. Prof. Fogg chose the topics very carefully and was even more meticulous in their delivery. He ensured that the core concepts are registered in the minds of boot campers using intensive hands-on sessions and role-plays rather than relying on typical pedagogic methodology.
Nice ambiance and a perfect setting
Far from the maddening buzz of the urban landscape, the workshop was conducted in serene ambience. Held in a beautiful guest house located by the riverside, the place was the best fit for learning and sharing . Also Healdsburg is a place surrounded with fertile land and so there is no dearth of natural vegetation. Every household here grows vegetables and fruits and no wonder you get the best quality natural products, direct from nature. This place also boasts of some fine vineyards and wineries around. All of these provide a great backdrop and a wonderful setting for the workshop.
And to wrap it up…
- Good use of different rooms and sometimes outdoors kept the workshop alive and participants active
- Outdoor activities and exercises were nice, thanks to the pleasant weather
- Perfect blend of individual and group exercises made the sessions insightful and interactive, as well
- Assignments right after discussions ensured that we applied the concepts to understand better
- Interactions with alumni and previous bootcampers helped understand the value of the boot camp
- Last but not the least, nice food and to top it all, a grand dinner arranged by the local wine trader
In the next few posts, I shall write more on the behavior model and how you can use the behavior design to create persuasive products and services. Hope you enjoyed reading this post. Until next one, ciao!
Tags: Apple, behavior, BJ, bootcamp, change, design, exercises, experience, Facebook, FitBit, Fogg, Google, habits, Healdsburg, health, Innovative, JawBone, Lab, modeling, Pardha Saradhi Mantravadi, persuasion, product, Prof, psychology, San Francisco, solutions, Stanford, technologies, texavi, training, University, Up, users, workshop
Posted in Behavior Modeling & Design, Innovation, Product Development, User Experience, User-centered Design | 4 Comments »
Thursday, October 27th, 2011
As you all know, during the recently held “Lets talk iPhone” event, Apple officially announced the launch of iPhone4S, iOS5 and iCloud. While it was a disappointment to some people who were expecting the big upgrade to iPhone4, that’s beside the point I want to make in this post. Rewind to April2010, when Apple first launched iPad, as the first ever consumer Tablet in the market. There was a knee-jerk reaction from lot of people, who rejected Apple’s new Tablet concept. There were more naysayers who expressed that they didn’t find any use for it and that the iPad was just a “glorified and bigger iPhone which can’t be used for calls”. Its everybody’s knowledge how that perception and reactions changed drastically over a period of time. Apple created the undisputed benchmark and a leader in the Tablets market, with many more companies bucking the trend and releasing their me-too versions. In this post, let us look at what it takes to create great products by managing users’ reactions and how you can better define the product.
Great products vs. good products
Some times, you would have come across products that not only have features and functionality to help you do the mundane tasks, but also fit in very well into your life and work. Discerning readers like you are very well aware that there is a difference between great products and good products. Great products differ in that they offer rich context, enable users to realize their goals and enchant them satisfying their implicit and unmet needs. These often go beyond the briefing and provide more than just nice features. Its true that not all products are created with this intent and that they gain users’ acceptance slowly over time.
How users relate and adopt to new products
I have seen an almost pattern-like behavior from users on how they react to products launched as groundbreaking new concepts which go on to become a huge success. I call this the 5A model of User reactions to new products. It starts with an almost hatred like feeling towards the new product. This is because users develop habits with the existing products and are happy using them the way they are. They perceive the new product as a change and a potential threat to their comfort. This could be because of the innate behavior of aversion to change and anything new. Then over time, due to various factors, both external and internal, customers tend to develop an acquired taste for the product.
The 5A model for product adoption
The perceptions and reactions of users to new products almost always follows a gradual progression of steps leading to great adoration for the products. I am not sure if anybody has patented this model already, but these terms came to my mind 3 months ago, when I was working on a new concept product for one of my clients.
- Aversion
- Acceptance
- Admiration
- Aspiration
- Adoration
I observed this model applicable to many successful products, tracing back to the times of their launch, how they changed with marketing, alignment to business and better product definition. One of the most successful product companies, Apple and its successful creation, the iPad are not an exception to this model, as we discussed above.
Ask what you are creating
The trickiest thing in developing new products is in understanding, defining and communicating what your product is and what it can do. Most products fail, not because they are designed badly or implemented in a technically incorrect way. They fail because the product vendors could not communicate the purpose and benefits of the product clearly to the customers and users. Or worse still, products are hit the hardest, when the product owners themselves are not clear about the vision and definition of their product.
How to define your new product
Innovation and thinking differently often help you in defining your product, which is a first step in paving the way for its success. The standing example for a successful application of innovation with thinking big is Metamorphosi which changed the way lamps and lighting are created.
While every other player in this market thinks of creating better and attractive table lamps, Artemide realized that they are not merely creating lamps, but helping keep people in better mood through their lighting. So, they decided their product definition as not just as a lamp, but a ‘lighting solution’! Small wonder that Artemide and Metamorfosi are equated to innovation in the home decor segment that triggered many admirers, followers and copy cats too, all around the world.
New product development checklist
The critical success factor in the product development is having a clear vision, direction and purpose for the product or application, that you are creating. You need to define the scope, intent and content of your product, which help in translating the vision into the product design, development and delivery. It is often necessary to go beyond the immediate form and name of the product under description. Do not get attached to, nor be limited by the physical aspects of your product. I always do a check with the following parameters to decide how well we are doing and whether we are on the right path. I use these as a definitive check list to assess the potential success of your product or concept.
- Business viability
- Technical feasibility
- Product usability
- Resource availability
- Consistent Quality
The above factors play a decisive and definitive role in the assessment of your product’s potential and performance. Do not underestimate the potential of validating your product against this check list. This would give you a very good measure of how your product is faring and in what direction it is heading to. You can then take necessary course correction and take preventive steps to steer your product back on track. We can talk in detail about applying each of these in the context of your new product, in a separate blog post.
Hope you found this post informative and usable. Happy Diwali to all my Indian friends and followers. Until next post, ciao!
Tags: adoption, analysis, Apple, applications, artemide, business, consulting, development, engineering, Innovative, iPad, iPhone, IT, mantravadi, market, metamorfosi, new, Pardha, product, Saradhi, solutions, technology, texavi, usability, users
Posted in Business Analysis, Business Case, Information Technology, Innovation, Product Development, User Analysis, User Experience | 5 Comments »
Saturday, October 15th, 2011
After all these years of my experience in engineering software products and applications, I realized that there is one phrase that I tend to hate the most. No, its not “Give me a ballpark estimate” or “I need this delivered by e.o.d. today”, though these come close enough to be 1st and 2nd runners-up 
. The one I am referring to is “Let users figure it out”. It is a nemesis to developing successful products, often resulting in a shoddy product. The “Figure-it-out” syndrome as what I call it, could be an evil for product development which can be as bad as, if not worse than Featuritis. The plausible cure for this syndrome is when the product is made easy to use for those people who are using it for the first time. In this post, I touch upon the ease of learning and use and give some tips about making your products a breeze for your users.
Easy to learn and use
Let us be honest, how many of us got trained on using the ATM card to withdraw money from a cash machine? At the least, how many went through the user manual, supplied? Popularly known as Any Time Money, the Automatic Teller Machine was conceptualized and designed so that users from different segments can get to use it with little or no effort. This is a classic case of designing a product which is not just easy to use, but also easy to learn for new users as well. Easy to learn and use a product is a critical yardstick to measure its success and is often ignored to a large extent for various reasons. Lacking this, a product might become a nightmare and the product or feature puts off not only novice users but also some experienced users, some times.
But then it has the ‘user manual’
Training, setup guides, user manuals, glossary, help docs and other such documents are meant to support the new users in coming to grips with the product. Like a site map which provides a clear guide on how a web site is structured, most of the above artifacts are meant to make it really easy for the users. But then, there is a view prevalent among the Design community that site map comes handy only when a web site is not usable by itself. In other words, only when users are confused, puzzled and left with no option, that they would look at a site map. So is the case with the supporting documents and help guides that I mentioned above. No matter how effective and efficient your technical writing team is, your documentation goes often into the dust bin. The golden rule is ‘Customers and users don’t read user manuals!‘. Bear in mind that these are good supporting aids but they can never replace a well-designed product.
The ‘Figure it out’ syndrome
Whether its the apathy towards customers and users, or the need for speed in delivering the product to market, the figure-it-out tendency gains ground with the product development team. You don’t suddenly wake up one fine morning with the syndrome. It gets built up over time and plagues your product and users to no end. Here are the factors that can potentially contribute to it…lack of empathy and concern for users, a frog-in-a-well approach. Also, an unwritten but strictly-followed preference attached to functionality and technology over user experience tilts the scales against making the product intuitive.
Don’t undermine the impact of this syndrome, it could be long term, deep cut and manifold. It affects not just the product creators – the stakeholders and the development team but also the product consumers. For the creators, due to the relatively short-sighted aspects of their planning and execution, there will be heavy overheads of customer-reported defects leading almost to a total rejection of the product by the users. Some of the products tend to be so overly complicated for new users that they instantly give up and return them or pass on to others. There are umpteen examples of products which flopped not for their technological maneuvers, nor for their functional richness but merely because they are rather too complicated for users to start using it.
Steps for ease of learning and use
The first step in making your products easy to learn and use, is to know your users. There is an oft quoted saying in the User Experience industry that tells it all - “Know thy user and you are not your user”. The next step is to design and develop the product in such a way that it is intuitive and clear for users. Cluttered and dense interfaces, confusing controls, unclear messages, lack of help when needed- all of these make it hard for your new users. As Steve Krug puts it in his book, ‘Don’t make me think’, the moment you let your users start thinking about how to use any feature or functionality, you start to lose the user ‘s interest. Also, there should be a flow that lets users feel immersed when doing a task. This would make them not only feel that they accomplished the task but also delighted. I would equate this to the concept of flow as explained by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his classic book on psychology – “Flow: the psychology of optimal experience”.
Who are you creating the product for
To be able to design your product better for ease of learning and use, you need to clearly identify who you are creating the product for. Going back to the ATM card example which we discussed above, the product was intended to be used by the larger number of users with little or no literacy, who would have never seen, leave alone using a computer before in their life. It was designed and developed knowing fully well that it needs to work with all the users with different backgrounds and literacy levels.
The beauty of the ATM product lies in that they cleverly disguised a computer into the machine. Without users’ knowledge, they are actually using a computer and its all made so much of a breeze to use it. No wonder, the concept and product caught up and it has changed the very definition of ’banking’ on a global scale. Another case in point is Intuit’s QuickBooks. While every other accounting product in the market was geared towards the accountants and qualified book keeping professionals, Intuit understood that there is a huge demand for a simplified accounting product for the non-accountants and novices. They launched QuickBooks with the sole focus on this segment of users and today it is the most successful product in that segment, popular for its ease of use among new and expert users, as well.
Expertise and experience make a big difference
I would suggest that you classify your existing and/or potential users, based on the following:
- Demographics
- Education and computer literacy
- Professional
- Psycho-graphic (attitudes, likes and behaviors)
- Tasks and scenarios
More importantly, to make your product easy to use, you must first profile your users based on the product usage experience. The following is a typical way of classifying the user groups, but you can adapt this and modify it to suit your needs.
- Novice /beginners
- Intermediate
- Advance
- Expert/experience
Specify your target
Now that you had a considerable start in the path of creating a great product, you now need to ensure that you have the right pick. The list below will help you in approaching the product definition in a structured way.
- Identify the composition and distribution of your existing and proposed user base
- Have a clear markup of the proportion of new users vis-a-vis advanced or expert users
- Specify which of the above user types you will target with the product
- This is applicable equally to the features and functionality and not only to the entire product
Here is how you can make IT easy
Beside the above suggestions from my experience, I offer a few other tips below to do a quick check on how effective your product or feature in the scale of ease of learning and use. You might use these as guidelines during the design and development of the product or as checkpoints to validate the features and functionality in your product. I am classifying them into the typical buckets of user experience, so that its easy to assess them individually.
Functionality
- What can I do with this product?
- What do I need to do, so that I can achieve my goals?
Navigation
- Where am I now?
- Where can I go from here?
Interaction
- What should I do to make this work?
- How responsive is it to my inputs?
Presentation
- Does this look pleasing to my eyes?
- Am I distorting anything to make it appear what it is not?
Help
- Can I get help when I need?
- Is help provided when I require it?
As always, hope you find this post informative and useful. Please do give me your feedback. Until next post, ciao!
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Tags: Accounting, analysis, ATM, bank, card, cash, Csikszentmihalyi, development, documents, ease, experience, figure, flow, functionality, help, Innovative, interaction, Intuit, Krug, learn, learning, mantravadi, manual, Mihaly, navigation, Pardha, presentation, product, QuickBooks, Saradhi, solutions, Steve, syndrome, texavi, usability, use, user
Posted in Information Technology, Innovation, Interaction Design, Product Development, User Analysis, User Experience | 8 Comments »
Saturday, September 24th, 2011
Whenever we start working on a new product or project, we are often rushed into creating ‘the solution’. Pressure builds up from all directions and we are but forced to start delivering the solution from the day one. This is where my problem lies…not being able to work on and understand the problem itself, but still trying to solve it. For instance, whenever you go to a doctor with an ailment or complaint, he does not give you treatment straight away. The physician asks you a set of questions, listens to your responses, understands what your problems are and then starts giving you the correct treatment. They call it ‘diagnosis’ and we all are happy to be diagnosed without asking any question to anybody, including ourselves. Then why is the resistance to adopt the same approach in other spheres of our work and life? Taking specifically the case of you, me and all of us, IT professionals and experts, I write this post to highlight the approach we should adopt to understand, define and communicate the problems before resorting to solutions.
Problems, needs, challenges & opportunities
Most of us use the terms problems and needs interchangeably in varying contexts. I am not too tied down to using any one terminology over the other. Bottom line is that we have to make an effort to identify them, define correctly, and strive to solve the problems or fulfill the needs. Some people also use opportunities in the same vein to convey that these have to be understood, pursued and addressed. You might have also come across the suggestion to replace the negative connotation of problems with its more positive and pragmatic counterpart, challenges. As I said, I am flexible on this and you can choose whatever you might like among the four terms problems, needs, challenges and opportunities. However, from a product manager’s perspective, my personal preference is to use the terms problems or needs, because they convey some sense of urgency and cry for addressing them and solving them at the earliest
Texavi’s Model for Problems and Solutions
I would like to touch upon briefly the model I evolved at Texavi to have a better handle at problems and solutions. The image below provides a clear distinction between problem space and solution space. As you can see, focus on the problem domain first helps us understand the WHAT and WHY which enable us to get to define the TO-BE WHAT and HOW to reach there. Also, this platform independent model lets you apply the methods and rules to any platform, technology. I shall discuss more on this in a separate blog post.
Problems drive solutions
Yes, problems do drive solutions and not vice versa. It is imperative to specify the problems first and then accordingly, direct our attention to the solutions. I would like to take the analogy of train and engine to put forward my point about problems and solutions. My fascination for trains and being a son of a Railways employee, I couldn’t but think of a better example. A train is driven by the engine and not by the bogies attached to it. No matter whether the engine is placed in the front or back of the train, it still powers the train and makes it move. Similarly, understanding the problems always helps us to find the correct solutions to tackle those problems.
How do you get to the problems
Well, by now you might have been convinced that problems are as important as, if not more important than solutions. The next obvious question that might come to your mind is how we can identify the problems, in the first place. From experience, I realized that problem solving is best when it is solved where it has come from. To be able to spot the problems in the correct way, we need to really have an open mind, with an inquisitive approach leading to exploration and discovery. This is quite different when you approach the solutions, which might need a one-pointed focus, with deep dive approach leading to generation of ideas and implementation of solution.
I follow a set of unwritten rules when trying to work in the problem space. These facilitate me by providing the right directions for the flow of my thinking. You can find the following pointers helpful in structuring your thoughts and approach to problem identification:
- What are the problems?
- Whose problems am I trying to solve?
- Why are these problems existing in the first place?
- Where can I start with my solution? Which problems need my attention, first?
- When can these problems said to be solved?
- How can I solve these problems?
My mantra for problems and solutions
Based on my experience as an analyst over the years, trying to find problems and solve them, I created a small mantra to help myself. This helps me focus and leverage the powerful relationship between problems and solutions. It is applicable to most situations, and helps all of us in any sphere of work and life. In fact, this entire post is based on this one and I would urge you, especially the product managers and business analysts among you to note it well and try and put into practice.
Know problems…know solutions
No problems…no solutions!
I hope that you find this post helpful to set the direction and help change your views about the problems and solutions. I will cover more details on the proven methodologies that we evolved at Texavi Innovative Solutions. As always, your feedback is welcome. Until next post, Ciao!
Tags: analysis, business, design, doctor, engine, innovation, IT, knowledge, mantra, mantravadi, Pardha, platform, problems, products, Saradhi, solutions, technology, texavi, Train
Posted in Business Analysis, Business Case, Product Development, User Analysis, User-centered Design | 7 Comments »
Saturday, September 3rd, 2011
People often ask me what I think, are the most important factors that contribute to the success of a product. My answer varies depending on the nature of the product, the person asking the question and my mood in that moment, to name a few. But interestingly, if we draw up a list of the responses to this question, the two items that top my list are simplicity and consistency. Yes, there is no doubt that these two aspects of user experience help to a largest extent in making any product, a huge hit. In this post, I will cover the first one, ‘simplicity’ and how we can leverage this powerful yet ‘simple’ usability mantra to turn your products and applications into a success.
Simplicity sells
Yes, simplicity does sell and sells, all by itself. Its perhaps the biggest value proposition in your product. In any industry and any geographic market whatsoever, you have hundreds and thousands of products and variants. There is a huge margin of difference between the leading few and the following majority. Often this boils down to one super differentiating factor and that is simplicity. It works wonders not just before sales, but also after the sale is done during the usage by end-users. This positive experience during the product usage prompts more usage, referrals and increased sales, overall.
A case in point is the search industry in the 1990s. Most of the web sites and applications at that time, including the then search leaders like Altavista and MSN had their web pages all cluttered with too much content. Google then understood that the only way to make users happy was by uncluttering and uncomplicating their search experience. They did this by keeping it really simple, with the entire page being occupied by a text box and a button. Need I say more about the success of Google search and how this powerful execution of minimalist design made Google the giant that it is today, not just in search but in software, mobile and many more product areas.
Less is More
In the words of the great architect, Ludwig Van Der Rohe, “Less is More” has been a watchword for the architects, designers and stylists. A pithy motto which says it all and stands by its meaning, simplicity is just that . While some designers also refer to this school of simplicity as ‘Minimalist Design’, other professionals and users might prefer to call it ‘working easy’. Making things simple is often a complicated process in itself and does ask for a methodical/systematic approach in the product development space. In this post, I wish to mention a few tips and techniques that I follow as part of my product engineering practice. You might see that these are just a few in the hundreds of ways, and for simplicity’s sake, I will focus on a few things because, less is more.
Let us ‘uncomplicate’
There is no dearth of complexity in our lives and professions. We are inundated with huge number of problems, challenges, and pain areas to give enough exercise to our body, mind and soul. Obviously we don’t want the products that we use to add up to this already complicated and stressful situation. The only way we can try and help ourselves is by looking at the problems and looking for the solutions that make it really easy.
There are various ways to attempt this uncomplication. However, the underlying concept is that you first need to identify the complexities involved and then find ways to remove or minimize them. To be able to do this, I suggest you try and get answers to the following questions.
- Whose problem is it?
- What problem(s) do you need to solve?
- Why were the problems there in the first place?
- How does solving this problem help the person(s)?
- Where can we go from here?
Reduce the cognitive load
The gateway to simplifying the product lies in the extent of cognitive load on users. I would say that this is the first and foremost step in the way to deliver a great user experience. This cognitive load could be in the form of visual or textual elements, for example when we refer to the presentation layer. It could take the shape of deep levels of navigation or the manner in which the elements are laid out by the information architecture. This is so important an aspect of the product engineering model, that I planned to write a separate blog post on this in the near future.
Cure Featuritis with simplicity
Most of the product managers are pretty well aware that they have a potential evil that they constantly need to fight off and that is Featuritis. However much they try, they invariably fall into the trap of adding more features and functionality, without validating how beneficial or what value they add to the product and its users. In a never-ending chase to build a better mouse-trap, the product takes the shape of a mammoth white elephant. Or just to exaggerate, the product could turn up into a ‘Frankenstein monster’ whose course cannot be controlled any longer by the product management team.
In the context of electronics, computers and software products & applications too, there has been an increase in the complexity scale corresponding to the rapid increase in the number of products. For instance, just jog your memory, thinking about the size of the device and the number of buttons on your Television remote control as you changed your Telly sets over the years. These are a great proof that with time and number of products in the eco-system, the complexity only increases and the converse may not be true all the time.
The only cure for this disease is Simplicity. Ask yourself the following questions when you want to add any new feature or make changes to an existing functionality.
- Who is this feature meant for?
- What problem is it trying to solve? or how does it help the person?
- Which users’ task is this feature relate to?
- How better can we make the product/process?
- How different is this feature from similar ones in previous versions or competitors’ products?
Push them under the carpet
You don’t have to give everything upfront and right on the first level. Understand the goals of your users from their own perspectives. Identify the tasks mapping to these goals or needs. For each task, you need to identify its importance and urgency. Then decide where in the order of things, you need to place the task and corresponding feature. It might happen that the feature needs to placed not at the top level, but somewhere deep down in the 2nd or 3rd levels of the hierarchy. That should be perfectly fine because you based your decision on the sound logic and understanding of the users’ needs and their key tasks.
A perfect example for this is the all too popular Swiss army knife. Give all the options to users, but let them decide how they wish to use a specific option, depending on the circumstances and context of usage.
Not just ‘ease of use’
Some people would equate simplicity to ‘ease of use’. But I think that simplicity goes way beyond ease of use and it is the effect of an all encompassing experience not just related to usage of the product. During the analysis, design and development of products, teams must take note of simplicity as a mandatory requirement for the product. In fact, the biggest measure for their effort and productivity is directly proportional to the success of the product in that how simpler the product got when compared to its previous version or that of the competitors’.
My five tips for simplicity
Finally, you can check how effective and simple your product has been designed and developed. I suggest you popup the following questions putting yourself in the shoes of the users and with their conceptual model in your mind. When you are satisfied with the answers that you give yourself, well you have got a product that flies!
- What can I do with this product or app?… (Functionality)
- Where am I now and where can I go from here?… (Navigation)
- What should I do now to make <something> happen?… (Interaction)
- Is it pleasing to the eyes? …(Presentation)
- Is there help, ready and when I need it?…(Help)
With this I end this post, and hope you enjoyed reading it and find it useful. Please do drop a line if you have any suggestions or questions. Until next post, ciao!
Tags: altavista, army, cognitive, complex, complication, control, design, ease, easy, feature, Featuritis, functionality, Google, help, interaction, knife, less, load, mantravadi, minimalist, more, msn, navigation, Pardha, presentation, product, remote, Saradhi, search, simple, simplicity, swiss, television, texavi, use, victorinox
Posted in Agile Development, Information Technology, Product Development, User Experience, User-centered Design | 10 Comments »
Saturday, August 27th, 2011
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change”. When I pondered over this popular quote of Charles Darwin, the other day, it occurred to me that ‘change’ is a profound phenomenon that impacts the way we live, work and do virtually every task. Change affects to a large extent, every human being in every phase and walk of life…young and old, rich and poor. Not only people, but organizations too have ‘change’ staring in their face and they have a greater responsibility to manage it and use it to their advantage. In this post, I will touch upon the key aspects of managing change and how organizations need to respond effectively.
The writing is on the wall
When they say that change is the only constant in this world, they meant it to the letter and spirit. Understand that everything is bound to change one day or the other in one way or the other. Don’t think that change is a negative thing and that we need to avoid it, evade it or confront it, to the least. On the contrary, change is for the benefit of all of us and take it as a positive factor that drives us in our lives and careers. Change is inevitable, be prepared for it and embrace it with all the preparation you can.
“Change, for your good
Change to take the lead
Change to be the best!”
Ride on the waves of change
In the context of product development and management too, change does play its role to a large extent and leaves its rather heavy imprints. Here, it does touch and signify its presence across all the strata starting from stakeholders, to customers and from partners to the development team. And to manage this change at various levels, organizations need to rely not just on their traditional abilities such as reputation, market capitalization, production capacities etc. To stay ahead in this game of managing change and lead the pack, organizations need to be nimble-footed, flexible and embrace change and act swiftly. Don’t fight change, you may not win the battle and it is not worth the effort. Instead try and ride on the waves of change and you will potentially have a joy ride.
Factoring for change – external and internal
The most important reason for success is to aspire for and be prepared for it. I like the Scouts movement started by Robert Baden Powell and the motto with which the cadets are trained. Every Scout lives by the motto “Be Prepared” and is ready to face, come what may. The Scouts go through a series of training sessions, equipped with the right tools and techniques to be prepared all the time. Similarly, organizations and especially product managers have to follow a few things to do as a precursor and warm up to the game of managing change effectively.
Identify all the potential factors that could affect your organization and products. Categorize them into external and internal factors for easy listing. Some of the external factors that are possibly candidates for change are the market forces, competition, out-of-control factors related to demand and supply dynamics, Government policies etc. The internal factors could be the capabilities of your own development teams, their skill sets, organizational set up, company policies and politics, to name a few. Of course, these factors could vary from industry to industry and also depends on the nature, size and type of the product you are developing or managing.
To be and to do
The most important thing is to know what you want to be and what you need to do to reach that stage.
- Identify the strategic vision of the organization
- Put together the long term, medium term and short terms goals for the business
- Identify the key stakeholders who directly influence or influenced by these goals
- Get all stakeholders aligned and seek their commitment
After you are done with listing the ‘to be’ goals, map them with the internal and external change factors that you identified earlier. The next immediate step is the creation of a ‘to do’ list which is derived from the mapping of ‘to be’ and the internal and external change factors. Often this list of action items is all you need to kick start a movement in your organization. I can’t prescribe the ‘to be’ points as they vary to a great extent based on the industry, domains, your own organization goals, products, people and processes. When you have this list by you, your product can be said to be put on the track. Once on the track, it is entirely up to you as a product manager to drive it in a way to meet the ‘to be’ goals.
Making elephants dance
What among the two items do you think makes it to breaking news- a dancing hyena or a dancing elephant? You are right, its the dancing elephant that makes it to the rolling marquee. It might be for various reasons, but sticking to the subject of the post, I wish to focus on the abilities of a dancing elephant such as its size, presence, and respect that make it a head-turner along with its newly acquired talent of dancing. The combination of agility with the abilities such as market presence, strong brand, talented workforce etc., would work wonders for your organizations and products. It is this healthy blend of the critical success factors and better change management tactics that make successful companies and products.
When I was doing my MBA, a few years ago, I read a book written by Louis Gerstner “Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance? – Inside IBM’s Historic Turnaround”. I loved the way that a company of the size and presence of IBM could be successful despite its size. IBM today is a 100 year-old organization which has seen itself grow from a company making ‘adding machines’ to a pure-play services company that it is today.
Everyone would have been surprised when IBM (I guess in 2005) announced that it was selling their PC business to Lenovo. I still remember some people questioning the decision to move out of the business which the company had grown out of as bread and butter for almost 50 years. Even Mr.Gerstner would not have imagined that IBM would rewrite its own History in such a bold way. But, IBM stood by its decision, after reading the writing on the wall, assessing their own strengths and heading up the path of action. A classic case in managing change, using the agility as the key over abilities as the key differentiation.
Agility is the key
Think of something that could work. Try it for sometime and check if it is working or not. Adapt it to suit your goals and continue the process. This is the only way to manage the ever-changing landscape of products market. To be able to manage change on a continuous basis, it is not enough if you do the above things once and leave them there.
Here are my tips for making agility as your all-weather friend!
- Take a few tasks and stick to them religiously. Discipline is paramount for success
- Be always on the lookout – learn, apply and share the learning
- Look, observe, listen and understand what is happening around you
- Revisit your change factors, to be and to do items continually
- Assess where you are, where you need to go and re-plan how you can reach there
- Restructure your teams to suit the ever changing demands
- Try new and different ways of doing things
- Don’t be too rigid with products, processes and people
Hope you have some useful takeaways from this post. Try the tips I gave here and see if it works for you. Let me know your views and ideas. Till the next post, ciao!
Tags: agile, agility, book, change, dance, elephant, factors, framework, Gerstner, IBM, Lenovo, management, mantravadi, market, MBA, movement, needs, organization, Pardha, people, process, product, Saradhi, Scouts, texavi
Posted in Agile Development, Information Technology, Life, Product Development | 7 Comments »
